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Eye for a Lie

One of the best ways to improve the quality of government is to buy a newspaper

Corruption is a lot easier when no one is watching. Without a reporter in the room or someone combing through the minutes of a meeting, it is easy for unscrupulous councillors to take backhanders from developers in the run-up to planning decisions. It is also easier to govern ineptly or lazily, since there is no one to tell the electorate about delayed decisions or poor policies. Without a reporter in the room at a magistrates’ court, patterns in crime go unnoticed, police prejudices unprobed, communities unprotected by knowledge of what is happening around them. Without reporters on the streets, abuses of children or of old people in care homes go unrecorded.

Public life does not hold itself to account. That is why the future of…

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